OAKLAND – He said “It’s just a normal sprain” as if that was true, when obviously it isn’t.

There is nothing normal about it. Golden State’s Stephen Curry missed the game against the Heat on Wednesday and sat out practice Thursday because of a sprained ankle. That’s news enough. But this is the right ankle, the real red-flag and siren territory.

Curry is a central piece of the fifth-place team in the Western Conference, probably the Warriors’ MVP the first half of the season, and a candidate to be named an All-Star reserve. Oh, yeah. And he has had two surgeries on the same joint.

At the very least, it is a return of the bad luck with the right ankle, the way he got hurt at shootaround, a rarity. Curry, going for a rebound during the walk-through earlier Wednesday before the Heat game, landed on the foot of Festus Ezeli. A “freak injury,” coach Mark Jackson called it.

X-rays were negative, an encouraging sign, and Curry planned to be on board Thursday as the Warriors jetted off for a San Antonio-New Orleans back-to-back beginning Friday. But just the re-appearance of any ankle problem is enough to create shockwaves here.

“It’s sore,” he said Thursday after the Heat clamped down on the Curry-less offense for an easy 92-75 victory. “It’s just a normal sprain. Ask any player when they sprain their ankle and they probably have the same sensations that I’m having now. Obviously I have a history with it so it’s going to be a bigger thing than normal, but right now it feels just like anybody else who sprained an ankle the way I did it. Just got to wait and see how it recovers.”

Curry is day-to-day, with the possibility that he could play Friday in San Antonio, but also the reality that the Warriors are going to be extremely cautious on a return.

“I’m not a doctor,” Jackson said Wednesday. “But I can’t imagine it turning into something more (serious). I’m not going to get into timetable and all that, but we’re not concerned.”

7 Comments

Please, this poor excuse for an article is nothing but whipping up fear and drama where there is none. The Warriors wouldn’t be stupid enough to put a date on Curry’s return because of the scars left by the Andrew Bogut situation. If anyone knows a serious injury from a regular sprain, it’s Steph Curry. He’s far too important to the team to ‘keep up appearances’ by travelling with the team when he should be re-habing. My guess is he will play against the Hornets in the second game of the back to back.

This is a ploy that the new Ws management does to seemingly keep fans hopes up. Same reason they hyped up Boguts return. First he was going to play a few preseason games, then they said he’d be ready for opening night. Then he’d be ready in home opener.

They ended up pushing him out there opening night even though he was clearly not ready. He played 6 games and was noticbly not close to ready and goes back to inactive. As a W fan, I’d like to think they didn’t set his recovery back by playing him those first 6 games but in reality, I’m sure it didn’t help.

Now to this; he rolls his ankle in a shootaround and is expectedly inactive after also banging knees in Denver the night before. Here’s the catch; W’s office reported that was a knee bump but he referred to it as a hyperextention. If you’ve ever played ball before, a knee bump and a hyperextension are very different. Hyperextensions take FOREVER to heal and are much worse.

Onto the ankle…the front office is saying things like ‘normal sprain’ ‘minor’ but also ‘out indefinitely’ ‘not sure when he’ll be ready’ ‘when there is no pain’. This is not good and I’ll say this now; if he travels with the team to Texas, it’s not because he may play on this road trip, it’s another mangement ploy to keep us hoping.

Dubs fans are the most pessimistic fans in the league and rightfully so. If you ask me, it was a good run but the rest of this month (and possibly season) will be typical Warriors basketball we’ve seen for the last 10 years. Lots of losses and frustration.

I lost $10 in a bet that Curry would reinjure the ankle before 2013. So he waits until the 15th. Adding insult to injury, literally.